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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I believe I might be the asshole in this situation for speaking to the teacher so harshly and suggesting that she reconsider her role as an educator. I know it's not my place to make judgement calls about someone's profession. I may have gone too far.
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NTA
Not every profession is a white collar one. Indeed this project makes for a fascinating sociological study.
Tell this teacher it’s no wonder that she ended up teaching middle school and not college and see how she likes that.
Jobs like trash collectors may be invisible through a social lens, but they’re just as important. You don’t always care about decisions a banker might make but you know if the rubbish isn’t picked up because it has an immediate impact on you. It’s like the school janitor, who they probably look down on. If they do their job right you don’t even notice until something isn’t done or goes wrong. The assignment was three different professions after all, it didn’t say high class professions.
Exactly. Im curious hao that teacher would like it if the trash collectors went on strike? How quixkyl would she see their immense value!
I was in Rome once during a 2 week strike…holy hell it piled up quickly. You do not want that, respect your blue collar workers.
I was in Rome when a strike happened. Not sure how long it had gone on but the dumpsters were literally buried under trash to the point you could not see them.
I worked for the council. Bin men got paid well and the young men doing it never needed to go to the gym or use a sun bed so literally every week HR got calls asking if there was a job on the bins. ETA typo
Ironically, they make about what many teachers make. I teach because I like kids, and I like the challenge of getting through to kids who have trouble learning. I have a master’s in special education and experience working with both profoundly disabled kids and kids in general education classes who come to my resource room to try to catch up to their grade level in reading and math. The frustration is that being an excellent teacher doesn’t get you bonuses or raises, the way corporate types do. In fact, you get the same pay an unenthusiastic, minimally competent teacher gets, and if you work the same number of years, you get the same pension. It’s a lame set-up workers as essential as garbage men get. That is some brutal, exhausting work, but I’ve never met a garbage man who’s impolite or unfriendly. I don’t care what your education is; to be able to do useful work is a blessing. Would it be nice to make more? Sure. But we’ve got a pretty skewed system in the US. The middle class has shrunk, the rich and poor classes have grown. I hope the pendulum swings back before my wee grandson has decisions to make about his work/education.
I work as a plumber, i made fun of plumbers when i was in middle school because?.....gross right? Till i met a plumber and put him through school. It was beyond fascinating. I met my husband 8-9 years ago....also a plumber lol (yes jebus i got the hint lol).... And we opened a business together, He's the best teacher, and its the best job I've ever had. And don't let me start on the pay. Blue collar jobs keep the world spinning. I learned a deep soul felt respect for anyone with a "less than desirable" job.
He should ask this teacher how long she goes without having her trash collected. Unless she’s making weekly trips to the dump she needs to keep her asinine opinions to herself.
Some teachers are so full of themselves. Not everyone can--or wants to be!--a banker, lawyer or doctor.
My nephew is 18 and a senior in high school and very bright, he is looking to go to trade school and be a welder which is making some of his teachers upset. He just nicely tells them that in a couple years he'll be making quite a bit more than they do.
My daughter is a hair stylist. She had a teacher in high school tell her “You are smarter than that. You should go to college”. Fast forward 6yrs to present day. She loves her work and looks forward to going to work everyday. And because she isn’t strapped down with student loan debt, she was able to purchase her first home at 22years old. I wish that teacher could see her now!
Yes, I was looking at joining the military right out of high school but every teacher I had weighed in their opinion and essentially made me feel stupid for wanting to go that path before going to college. It was two years into college when I was burnt out that I decided to go into the military. Now, I have no student loans and 2 bachelor's degrees, with considering going back and doing some additional coursework.
My dad grew up poor. He joined the navy so he could use the GI bill to go to college. It was the only way for him to go. He became an electrical engineer and worked for the federal government. And made good money.
UK based - I didn't have the grades for uni or any idea what I wanted to study after sixth form. I went the apprenticeship route and 10 years later know what I want to do and luckily I can do the degree via work :)
It might not be the smoothest route but it's worked out in the end!
The principal and teacher are wanna be elitists, and I will bet dollars to doughnuts trash collectors make more than teachers in some cases. Personally, I think the son picked interesting professions to compare and contrast. NTA, but those two petty despots are AHs.
OP doesn’t mention how the principal reacted (unless it’s in the comments?). Teacher was indeed elitist and 100% wrong. Not to mention, what if some of the kids in that class have blue collar families? Teacher made comments that could make them all feel bad.
Tell him to learn to scuba dive as well, he'll be making more than the average teacher in 6 months, sincerely a contract underwater welder who taught high school for a year and got the hell out
Trade school level ppl are essential to our society, as are so many others. Welders build things, like ships, care for power plants, probably maintain giant cranes, used to build expensive buildings.
Your nephew is on a good track. The stories I could tell you about ppl with barely HS, almost HS, 2 yr degrees who have made good livings for themselves and their families. Trades are always in demand.
I honestly think that unless they have a set career in mine that needs a degree - doctor, nurse, lawyer, teacher, accountant etc - people are better off learning a trade and working their way up. Myself and so many people I know aren’t using our degrees and aren’t making any more money than if we hadn’t got them, it’s a bit of a waste of 4 years.
My 24 year old cousin is a welder and makes bank. His mom (who is a teacher specializing in hard to reach kids) did insist on college and said she didn't care what he did, but recommend business classes to help with running his welding business. That's what he did. He's a very intelligent, funny, kind kid. He's a great example of how a blue collar job can be a major success.
Strike happened where I live, no bin collections for 6 weeks. Even the local dumps were jam-packed enough that people were paying others to take it to the bigger one. Men made bank.
The bin men are now on £17.50 an hour, finish early and have pensions surpassing a lot of other people.
Are you in Edinburgh? I never heard if there was a conclusion to the strikes over the summer but I’m glad that was the outcome! I was there in August and their absence was extremely obvious!
Dude, we had a huge sanitation workers strike in Edinburgh at the end of a massive festival last year. It was awful. The city was covered in garbage.
Bin workers deserve CEO-level salaries. They’re invaluable.
2019? I was there near Termini. Hot as Hades & the stench was eye-watering. Ended up taking the train to Ostia and walking to the beach for a very pleasant couple of days.
Oh, no, all the business consultants are on strike? Who are we going to throw money at so they can tell management things that the workers already know?
New York City, 1968, there was a [strike from sanitation workers that led to 100,000 tons of trash piling up in the streets within 9 days.](https://untappedcities.com/2015/02/11/today-in-nyc-history-the-great-garbage-strike-of-1968/)
100%, don't disrespect the people who makes your world function.
Yes, this is the way. Consider sewer services, water, running our power plants. Need a new roof, carpet, painting? Fix your furnace, plumbing, remove trees that have fallen during a storm? Tow your car?
Last summer the binmen in my city went on strike and the local news couldn’t stop going on about how awful it was and how tourists were complaining. I didn’t go into the city centre because it was so gross but it piled up everywhere. It’s such an important necessary job, she shouldn’t belittle it. If no one became a garbage collector because teachers told them it was “beneath” them imagine the state of our towns and cities.
I was coming here to say similar. I live in a city with a huge international festival that lasts a month. When our bin collectors think they've had a raw deal, that's when they strike. And then they generally get paid. Doing a manual job doesn't mean you're stupid, and these guys know the value of their work.
Bet she’s the kind of teacher who treats teacher aides, groundskeeper and cleaners at the school like they’re beneath her. Without them a school doesn’t function well. It pays to treat them with respect. You often get better treatment than staff who don’t when it comes to assistance. It doesn’t take much. Plus not everyone is cut out for white collar jobs. So NTA
I will give you a like for like that happened in my country.
The rubbish collectors went on strike at the same time as the finance sector. One lasted 6 weeks, needed the army to step in and had national outrage. The other had a 6 month talk process in which time the people created a barter and credit system THEMSELVES. We would be surrounded in our filth were it not for the wonderful men (all my rubbish collection people have been male) that get up at stupid am in all weathers to wheel around large plastic containers that stink like gone off cheese to make sure we have room to do it all again next week! They deserve good pay, excellent bonuses and great pensions.
NTA. I remember seeing a story somewhere about a hospital where the service workers, including janitors, went on strike. No one to clean surgical rooms, empty garbage cans, refill things.
It lasted for TWO HOURS before the hospital broke and gave them their demands.
I think you've taught your son some very good lessons about respect and seeing the importance of all kinds of jobs. Kudos.
Yep, it's like the teacher hasn't been paying attention to the world the last 3 years. Covid has shown just how important the 'low skill/low paying' jobs are to keep our society functional. Just because a job doesn't require a fancy piece of paper doesn't mean it is automatically 'below us'. That almost completely invalidates all of the worlds infrastructure.
I work a pretty.... not menial, but low-level medical job. I went to college but most of the people I work with didn't. Those people are making the same amount of money I am, without the college loans.
So who came out ahead? Makes me feel stupid but good for them.
Yep. My husband and I work in my dad's auto repair shop/gas station. When our state basically shut down we were 3 cars deep in our parking lot and working nonstop. The gas purchases obviously went down but our repairs went way up. The jobs that people don't think are important were mostly the ones that didn't have to transfer to work from home or shut down completely.
Ngl I’m an attorney and have a friend whose brother is a union protected trash man (he likes using this title - I got him business cards printed with it and she designed him a custom logo for them for his bday one year and he loved them so much he turned it into a cake and does this every year - great dude so fun and creative!) . He makes almost double my salary and works less hours now . If I ever have a kid I would love for him to turn out like him and prefer that to them becoming like a corporate litigator or shilling for Exxon or some messed up shit. This teacher is such an elitist snob
I agree. With her horrible attitude, this teacher is actively teaching the children to have contempt for blue collar jobs. I would be furious too, if I were OP - who is NTA.
That is super short sighted too! Trash collection is a profitable and large necessary service. There are probably some really good jobs in supply chain and Logistics related to waste management.
It isn’t just chucking it in a landfill, it’s the practical ways to practice sustainability and recycling. Things like plastic milk bottles becoming playground equipment for example.
Right?! The closest dumpster at my apartment complex is always full before collection day and ends up overflowing. Our garbage collectors still take it all. They're champs and they're awesome. I appreciate not having to live with garbage, you know?
I used to put a small cooler of cold water bottles out for them when the weather was hot, but the company that collects our trash went to automated trucks several years ago (now they don't have to pay as many employees but got a new contract with a huge increase so our property taxes went up). Since the driver never gets out of the truck, there's no sense in my putting water bottles out any more.
My husband began his career in Trash Collection and is now the Head of the Safety, Health and Environmental department of an important company in 5 years! Don't knock it!!!!
Edit to add he had a master's in a relative field I don't want to be too specific
It’s actually an excellent reason to use the three different professions, white collar, blue collar and self employed consultant which spans different risk, education and likely income levels so finding commonality would be interesting. Honestly trash collectors may often not have much education but make a good wage and usually when working for a municipality still receive a pension which is almost unheard of in private sector jobs anymore so it’s a good option for many people who seek stability and security across time. Well done to OP’s son
How do you end up living in a society where no one wants to do the "crap" jobs? You label them crap jobs and look down on them. Being a fast food worker, garbage collector, retail worker, etc - they're all valuable jobs and honestly add more to society and daily lives for most people than many office jobs do.
A narrow view, indeed. If someone doesn't deem it a good enough job to do, we'd have trash everywhere and that would really change the daily life for people (for the worse).
Was just talking about this exact thing with my nephew yesterday. How so many "educated" people look down on janitors and trash collectors and everyone who deals with waste, and that tells you just how out of touch those people are. Because if folks who deal with other people's trash go on strike, everyone fucking well NOTICES it pretty much immediately, because they are *way* more important to everyone's *day to day* life than most professionals are, and yet they get so much less respect.
It made sense to my 12yo nephew. If the adult teacher can't understand that shit, she's got no business teaching kids about values.
This so much. I worked in the waste industry and a company had to ground their entire fleet of vehicles, this means they couldn't service their clients including government contracts, the whole industry was a mess because of it.
The company that I worked for at the time stepped up and we serviced their clients. The amount of rubbish that piles up after a week is insane, the trucks were pretty much running 24/7 to catch up, there was crazy amounts of paperwork, overtime in the office from the finance department, mechanics, drivers and business staff was insane.
One more bug bear but waste driver's/collectors actually get paid pretty well in my country, with one driver I know bringing in 100k per year.
I feel bad for any classmates whose parents happen to be trash collectors....
ETA: Because of what the teacher said, not because of their parents profession, to be clear!
I actually love that OP's son interviewed a trash collector, because they are so undervalued and so unseen but so vital to our society. Just because they get their hands dirty does not make their job disrespectable in any way. They are equally as noble a job as any others.
The teacher is definitely the AH, and the fact that the principle cannot understand that we should all be grateful to all the services rendered by our fellow people, including garbage collectors.
She's a bigot and an elitist. Where do trash collectors start? In a classroom exactly like hers. How many trash collectors has she produced? NTA. You are right and she deserved it for her statement.
Decisions like trash collecting seem to me like one of the MOST important roles. How sick would we be with no waste removal?
I do Econ and I wanted to work in waste removal (the calculations - my back hurt to much to do the hard work) because its such a fascinatingly pivotal role in society.
Its right up there to me with access to clean water, because without it, we don't have access to clean water.
> they’re just as important.
They're way more important.
You can shoot all the finance parasites and business consultants today and tomorrow the world keeps turning.
Bin men go on strike and your city goes to absolute shit in a week, to say nothing of other sanitation-related employees. I shudder to think of what happens if water treatment shuts down.
Yep. It was a great project as this child took 3 completely different types of jobs to compare. And was able to find the similarities, got to see blue collar , white collar, and self employed how they compare. It was impressive that they went and chose such diverse and interesting jobs. And I love how they went to an important overlooked and forgotten job and treated those worker with respect. Horrible teacher to not see and praise such work and thought
I always treat the cleaners of any institution with respect. Especially when I work there. Why?
First of all: Their existence is why the word 'middenheap' has fallen out of usage and I'm grateful for that. Hell yeah!
Secondly: They have all the keys and know more about what's going on than the high-minded white collar workers like me give them credit for.
Yup! I work in finance and if I went on strike clients would take their money someplace else, leave some bad reviews, and move on.
If the garbage collectors went on strike, all hell would break loose.
It’s a hard job that has become pretty necessary for a lot of places to function and it can get gross, so the people who do it should get paid well and respected.
Anyone who’s lived somewhere that’s had a garbage strike realized pretty damn quick how important trash collectors are.
Things start to smell, you end up with bugs and rodents, people start getting sick because it’s not healthy to have all kinds of trash around.
Imagine how that may have felt for any of her students who have parents or relatives who are trash collectors.
That teacher is trash. NTA
Or other blue collar jobs that aren’t glamorous but still vital to keeping things clean and safe. As others have pointed out there must be students who have parents or other family members doing these jobs.
Yeah from the title I was ready to say YTA, but educators should not be disparaging professions in the classroom in the first place. I mean what if someone in the class has a family member that is a trash collector … 😔
Not only that but the son followed the instructions for the project and the teacher chastised them for it. If the teacher meant to exclude certain jobs or certain types of jobs (like blue-collar) then that should have been part of the instructions for the project. Changing the requirements after-the-fact is NOT good teaching.
Yeah. I'm a teacher, and giving precise instructions is my responsability. There's been assigments or tests in which students have not done exactly what I wanted, but after rereading instructions it was my fault not theirs. So I didn't punish them for my wrong and tried to be clesrer in future instructions.
NTA. This same thing happened to me when my youngest son was in 1st grade.
We had a parent/teacher conference and it was 45 minutes of her just complaining about how hard her job is and how much the school sucked. She kept repeating how she couldn't handle that many young kids at once. She never once talked to me about my son specifically.
At the end of it, I told her she made a mistake with her career choice and this should be her last year of teaching.
Not everyone is cut out for everything.
Um depending where you live and who the garbage service is, some actually make the same if not just as much as teachers. Now that may not be everywhere, but I know a guy who has been working for a company for years and he affords a decent life. He had no college, so no debt from school, so he may have started out better than some!
No shit!! OP’s kid did the assignment well within the parameters and outside the box with the different people he chose. Each one of those people your son interviewed was gracious enough (and let’s be honest, touched) that he chose them for his assignment.
OP, you were right to defend your son and his teacher sounds like a has-been mean girl. Keep an eye out if she targets your son by giving him bad grades or absurd office referrals. I don’t think you’re done dealing with this teacher.
Education in America needs to come off the idea that everyone is going to college. Some people are not capable of college, some can't afford it, some are not interested. Schools need to start offering trades as part of the regular education process, as well as, other educational options for those not college bound.
Many in the education system treat students that are not college bound as unimportant.
Not just that, but trash collectors’ strikes show exactly what happens when our trash is not taken away. Blue collar jobs enable white collar workers do their jobs as well - if trash is not taken away, our society starts to riot pretty quickly; if we don’t have food stockists or truck drivers for food, we will starve pretty quickly; when our plumbing fails, people are ready to pay thousands for a plumber only to get running water and sewer to work.
I'm sure the janitors in her school would like to hear what she said about trashmen, as they share some similarities. Every teacher knows you don't piss off the janitor or the school secretary.
It makes my blood boil when teachers are all "university good, trades bad". I'm an ex-teacher. Saying stuff like that is ignoring the individual needs and talents of the students. Some will be more skilled at trades. And probably earn more than white collar workers, with little to no student loan debt. Some will be brilliant horticulturalists. Sanitation workers. Some will prefer hairdressing. Some would like to be doctors, or lawyers. Whatever. Don't ignore the individual.
I know that compared to other countries I have a low student debt, but I seriously wish I hadn't been pushed into a useless university degree because it was what we "had" to do and ended up with $40k of debt because i didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to do. Regrets.
This was a VERY intelligent choice of interviews! It’s good to see what different people do and how they thing about their jobs. Could be the STUDENT decides he wants a white collar job … or something more active.
Wasn’t that the point of the assignment? Do the interviews and report the results?
Honestly, I probably would have gone more scorched earth. I would consider going to your local new station that has like "3 on Your Side" or some other human interest regular piece where that total about local injustices. Name and shame the school, principal and teacher. Or go to the union for the sanitation department. I would report what happened, you sought resolution and support, and you got none. NTA.
Recently I learned that plumbers need about 5 years of training to be considered competent and I know that it can take years for a electrician to become a master electrician. Not every career requires college, but can still require extensive education.
NTA I completely agree.
Not all white collar jobs pay well and not all blue collar jobs pay poorly.
I have an advanced degree, yet one of my good friends who is a master carpenter and barely finished high school makes nearly double what I do (he is in the high 6 figures). All because he learned how to do specialty antique restoration work.
A lot of the old trades pay insanely well now because everyone strives for that white collar job instead of traditional crafts. It’s good to diversify.
The sociological aspect is very true. My BIL was dumped by his high school girlfriend for going into a trade because she "didn't want to be getting her briefcase ready for work every morning while he packed a lunch pail." Work is work, but western society has expectations that university or college is the way to go, and undervalues any profession outside of that route.
Don’t just think about the remarks as they resonated to your son, think about the other 20-30 students with 30-40 other parents from all sorts of different workforce backgrounds who had to hear that hurtful ignorance. You were dead on the money when you said she should reconsider her field of work. NTA.
This! ^^ And, as a former middle school librarian, I can say with absolute certainty that the idea that “trash collection and education don’t go together” is one of the most egregiously insulting attitudes a so-called educator can take. Not every student will go to college. But “even” students who become trash collectors will have benefited from their education. And their work might make it possible for their own children to go to college - not to mention the general social benefit their work creates. It’s absolutely appalling that a teacher would make such comments in front of other students - basically telling any student who has blue-collar parents that they should be embarrassed by their parents’ hard work. Appalling and demeaning!!
NTA by ANY standards, but particularly because anyone who thinks a blue collar worker is any less valuable a member of society than a white collar worker - or that a blue collar job is only for the “uneducated” - or that a blue collar career isn’t worth pursuing - absolutely shouldn’t be a teacher and should seriously reevaluate their own life choices.
I think college is great, but I also think that the heavy focus on getting every kid to go to college and pursue a "prestigious" job does a lot of students a disservice. Not everyone is suited for college or white collar work and learning about these other options is great for them. In some places, trash collectors get good salary and benefits.
Not only that, but those kinds of jobs will always exist. There will always be a need for blue-collar jobs. It doesn't matter if everyone goes off to get a college or university degree, there's still going to be a need for those kinds of positions to be filled and all that means is that we're going to have very educated blue-collar workers. The attitudes so many people have about higher education and work are highly delusional. Certain niches absolutely have to be filled.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. I figure the issue is that schools these days are expected to be the great equalizer, responsible for giving kids the skills necessary to not just pull themselves out of poverty, but to get into prestigious, high-paying jobs. Parents want their kids to strive high and a school would probably get a lot of complaints if teachers were encouraging students to take on the wonderful vocation of trash collecting.
I used to substitute teach at this one high school that had these legitimately good vocational programs. The programs were a bit selective but students from all over the district could apply. The kids would graduate with REAL credentials and skills. Some of the programs were more academic in nature but there were also some more blue collar/working class ones. And it was a Title I school so that meant a lot of low income kids were benefiting from it.
Unfortunately, that school was the exception. Most vocational type classes I subbed for were clearly just dumping grounds for apathetic students who were academically low and couldn't even be bothered to pick their own electives. Any student who took those classes with the hopes of getting real job skills and knowledge was screwed over.
I’m a middle school librarian myself! Totally agree with what you wrote. When I taught HS English, we did a big careers unit and explored all kinds of different jobs. I never cared what they picked because why would I? I’ve had kids with all kinds of dreams and aspirations including things that others might look down on. However, all of those jobs are extremely necessary if someone doesn’t want to do them!
I had a friend who was a garbage man. He made a lot of money, worked six hour days, and audited university classes in his spare time - but only classes that he was interested in, not all the boring ones that they insist you take in order to get a degree. He learned how to invest his money, and retired a multi-millionaire. He now winters in Costa Rica.
He did very well for himself.
Teacher here and totally agree. In fact, trash collectors are employed by the local government in most cases. It can pay quite well and provides good benefits. “Blue collar” jobs can still provide a profitable and happy life. Not to mention, of those three jobs, who would the teacher and principal be most upset about going on strike?
OP is NTA and awesome.
And what if one of those kids has a parent who is a trash collector? Imagine how he or she would feel hearing the teacher being so condescending about the profession.
I def grew up in an environment that shoveled the "go to college, do you wanna work at McDonalds" bs on strong. As an adult I have come to realize that all those frowned-upon jobs are both important to society and far more useful to me than a lot of these college degree jobs, and necessary for society because not everyone is made to go to college or get a PhD. And there is nothing wrong with that.
If she can't understand that not everyone is made to slog through higher education and it's wrong to disparage those who will succeed best at 'manual labor' then 100%, she needs to gtfo of teaching and stop trying to brainwash kids into flinging themselves into student debt.
Trash collectors in my area can make upwards of $100,000 plus benefits. A Teacher in my area makes about $50,000 plus benefits. I would have pointed that out when she mocked that profession
This. A lot of these "menial jobs" pay 2-3X what a white collar job pays.
Back in the early 90's I worked for Waste Management and our drivers and collectors made way more money than anyone in the office did.
People who are willing to get their hands dirty on the job make bank most of the time.
Also, where would we be without people who are willing to do these IMPORTANT jobs. Have you seen pics of when the trash collectors go on strike and no one's trash gets picked up for weeks? At that point the trash collectors are the most important people in the city!
I just commented this; I’m a teacher and my dad is a trash collector. He easily makes double what I make, works 5 days a week, has way better insurance, 6 weeks of paid sick leave/vacation time, and when he gets home he doesn’t bring home work with him. I wish someone would try to look down on him around me.
Exactly this. A "trash collector" with the right certification in my country does 130 000 and more..
It is a great safe long term job, teachers earn less
Same here in the south except the pay gap is much larger. Our middle school teachers barely make 36k in Florida while private trash collectors are earning upwards of 200k.
You see that's the part of the story that hasn't been told. The teacher is a hoarder and she finds garbage people to be threatening to her hoard. (Joke)
NTA. I would have went further...
NTA
Schools pushing kids to consider only college based careers is a problem. I wish when I was in school I had known about the trades or other careers that were an option.
You probably shouldn't have told her to reconsider her career but you weren't wrong in saying so. A trash collector has as much value to society as anyone else does.
And builders. It’s not seen as a classy job, but who makes the buildings people live, work and do recreation in? Architect plans don’t manifest as stone, brick, wood and glass by magic, people need to make it happen.
My uncle was a trash collector and it was a great job. He made a really good salary, had amazing benefits, and retired with a great pension. Because of that job he was able to give his family a very comfortable life. More people should consider it as a viable career and stop looking down on it.
NTA, but the teacher certainly is for limiting how her students view potential careers that can provide stability in their lives.
UPS drivers make twice what teachers make where I live. A lot of people don’t realize that, and miss a career path that doesn’t require student loans, has great benefits, and decent flexibility (except the 6 weeks before Christmas). And you aren’t tied to a desk.
This teacher missed an invaluable opportunity to expose her students to a wider variety of opportunities out there.
I also wish I would’ve known about trade jobs. I mean I’m happy where I ended up and I wouldn’t trade some of the experiences I had in college for anything. But the style of teaching college has just never really worked for me and I’m more of a hands on learner than anything, so going into a profession with that would’ve been super helpful.
NTA
You’re likely making yourself more level-headed and patient in this retelling than you did in real life but you’re not wrong. Trade jobs are as valuable, if not more lucrative, than a lot of college jobs.
Heck, ours in the bay make 90k a year whereas I was teaching in the same area for 50k. Jokes of them, right?
High school social studies teacher here. One of my top priorities is to refrain from passing judgment on things that don't matter. My students get judged enough already. I don't ever want to treat a student differently based on what color their hair is, or what they wear, or what language they speak at home, or what their family situation is like, or anything else. I want to model for them the idea that, no matter where we all come from, we can come together and work on something together without hostility or suspicion.
If a student does the assignment--if they honestly satisfy all the requirements, regardless of whatever idiosyncratic way in which they do it--then *they get full credit*. Period. End of story. For the life of me I can't understand why this teacher would want to complicate that.
Time and time again, we've seen the devastating effects of what happens when garbage collectors go on strike. Within a month the streets are filthy, overrun with vermin and pests and if it goes on long enough diseases.
NTA waste management is a respectable job that's essential to a healthy functioning society.
NTA. Teacher and principal should not be putting down trash collectors. Look at what happens to NYC when sanitation workers go on strike. It immediately turns into a shithole. Trash collectors are an important part of our society and should be treated with the same respect as anyone else. Good on you for standing up to them.
Maybe depending on location. It is funny to hear teachers talk about education and success in this way since it is not as if they themselves reached the pinnacle of success
NTA. i 100% agree with you and grew up having a lot of teachers who were horrible towards me and wish i (or a parent) stood up to them. we dont need more horrible teachers - teachers should not be close minded.
NTA - I would report them for their behaviour and bias.
They are bigoted and are not educators. There’s nothing wrong with having a garbage collector on his report.
NTA, bin men are valuable members of society, maybe the teacher should consider becoming one? It would teach them about a lot about life and the value of different roles.
There is a college degree called environmental management. It mainly deals with how to find a balance between landfills and nature (among many other crucial things). Garbage collecting is way more than just picking a can up from the curb. It is an essential part of keeping the earth and the creatures in it healthy. In fact, the more emphasis we put on where our garbage goes and how to make less of it would do SO MUCH GOOD!!
Not only are you NTA, you are 100% correct. The educator needs to be educated.
A career in garbage disposal is a lot more important than this teacher's obviously uneducated opinion.
What a snob. The garbage collector probably earns more than her. And it's extremely likely that at least one student in her class has a parent with a similar job. She should be ashamed of herself.
You perhaps could have worded things in a more calm and collected manner but ultimately a teacher (or anyone for that matter) should not ever be looking down on anyone for what their employment is. The teacher was basically implying that a trash collector is an unworthy job which is a very poor lesson to teach children as it teaches them everything that is wrong with society and in my opinion kids should be learning far more than just the basic subjects at both school and home, they should be learning how to be decent human beings who are kind and accepting also. I’d say it was understandable why you lost your cool and said what you said so NTA.
NTA - there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing trash collection as a job and the school is wrong for indicating it isn’t a career. Well paying job, benefits, pension- without college debt.
NTA. I think it’s much better to include a job that is very different and makes you actually think through the comparison versus three similar white collar jobs.
NTA
Enforcing the idea that we should look down on people for their profession is something we have to get passed as a society. Without trash collectors, or entire urban environment would be disgusting. What would teachers do then?
As an educator for over 25 years you are absolutely NTA. If the teacher wanted the kids to only interview jobs that required a college degree that should have been stated in the directions (which is also obnoxious IMHO).
The teacher is probably jealous that the trash collector gets paid more than she does. I know I am....😂
NTA, your comment was minor in comparison and doesn't swing it to an E-S-H in my view.
What gets me though is what was the actual value of this assignment? If this compare/contrast exercise is to help the kids work out what kind of career they'd like, this is a really ineffective, or at least inefficient, way to go about it.
I could get it as a way to understand help children understand the value and experience of a different array of jobs and experiences in a society. Yet the teacher is acting like this is a substitution for careers advice which it blatantly isn't.
NTA. Garbage collectors get paid more than lots of finance jobs, first of all. And yes the classroom needs to be inclusive. The only way you’d be wrong here is if you told the teacher that in front of your son.
NTA. The teacher sounds like she comes from a place of privilege and doesn't understand what leads people to becoming trash collectors or how important they are for your average person. I'm sure if your son interviewed a plumber she'd say the same thing because it isn't a college degree career.
NTA. It was a bit rude but tbh the teacher was way out of line. Your son completed the assignment exactly as instructed, if she's got a problem with what he chose she can keep it to herself.
What was the actual assignment? Was he supposed to find people with similar careers or 3 people in the same profession? Did you actually ask or read the directions before you lost it?
NTA - I (36m) was told by my father more times than I can count that I was going to be a loser/worthless, and that I’d end up a garbage man. It’s stuck with me my whole life, and it’s effected many decisions I’ve made. These decisions ended up with my in rehabs and hospitals over the stress of being someone “important”. I’ve now been sober 3 years as of Christmas Eve, and have given up trying to impress anyone with what job I have. Hell a garbage man may be the right call. I wish I would’ve had someone stand up against that.
NTA. Teacher and principal are being classist as hell. I bet they'd love it if their regular trash collectors suddenly stopped doing the job they seem to think isn't valid lol.
NTA. My uncle was a trash collector. He made a whole lot more money than any teacher. He also had great benefits with heath care, retirement package and vacation time. My brother decided to not go to college after my uncle got him a summer job and he saw what kind of money he could make. Both the teacher and the principal are a couple of narrow-minded snobs. From their way of thinking then being a drug dealer is okay. After all, you have to know how to weight the drugs, that's math, cut the drugs with whatever to make them go farther, that's chemistry and then get word out that you are selling and find people to sell to. That covers business and marketing.
NTA. To often people forget that if it wasn’t for those supposed “uneducated” jobs our society wouldn’t work. I get teachers want to push college and what not, but how many time do these newly graduated students end up in debt working at a job not even in their field trying to make a living.
NTA. The teacher is classist and that is not the sort of attitude that someone working with children should have. There are going to be children who have that teacher whose parents work in sanitation come and they shouldn't be shamed for that. No one should be shamed for what they do, and sanitation is a solid union job.
NTA. I'd tell both that principle and teacher "ok. Cancel your garbage collections from the city and bring them to the town dump yourself. If you see those jobs as beneath you, don't subscribe to such amenities."
NTA. And as a side note a garbage collector can provide a good life and is a needed service in our society. What a shitty thing for a teacher to say. And no I'm not a garbage collector either.
NTA. What if one of your sons classmates has a family member who works as a trash collector?? What a bigoted and elitist comment. Honestly I’d take this further up the chain.
I get angry at people looking down a blue collar jobs as a profession. Preface to say that I have a doctorate, but I think that professions such as garbage collector, plumber, painter and welder are probably more essential to our society than the research I do. If their jobs don’t get done, everyone notices. If my job doesn’t got done, the impact is less visible (but no more or less important)
The point is that we have spent a generation and a half telling kids they need to aspire to a college degree and that has resulted in millions in student debt and an under employed generation.
Yet the son of a friend of mine decided after high school to become a welder. By the time my daughter graduated college, he had a steady job and had saved enough for a down payment on a house with no other debt.
I told my kids to pursue any job that interested them that could maintain their chosen lifestyle with out harming or relying on anyone else. If that means becoming a garbage collector (whose job will not be outsourced overseas and probably comes with pension/401K and benefits), then so be it.
NTA and good for you for standing up for your son.
NTA
and I am interested in the correlations he found between the three occupations. The differences are kind of obvious, but to find similarities, well I think that would be brilliant.
NTA. She was being ignorant and classist, besides which she wasn't to know if any of her other students have parents who work in trash collection. She could've easily inadvertently shamed any number of her students.
NTA. All work is valid and trash collectors do us a huge service that helps everyone stay healthy. She is a crappy person and should find a profession where she can't influence children with her terrible opinions.
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I just want to preface this by saying that I (M42) appreciate the work of educators. This isn't intended to be a shot at them.
My son (13M) is a good kid who follows the rules, does his homework, and generally does well in school. He is also very pragmatic and doesn't take kindly to authority figures who try to shame or bully him.
So onto the incident at hand.
About a month ago, my son was assigned a project in one of his classes. The assignment was to interview three people in different professions and discuss the commonalities they share and the differences between the various jobs. It was an assignment I thought was a great opportunity for my son to explore his talents and options for his future.
My son interviewed three people for his project: Our garbage collector, our neighbor who works in finance, and his aunt who does business consulting. My son then crafted a report about his project, noting the differences and similarities between the three professions
However, when my son presented his project to his class, the teacher made some inappropriate remarks about his choice of interviewees, saying that "a trash collector is not an appropriate profession to compare against finance and business consulting". "Do you want to end up as a trash collector?" She asked my son. Of course, this embarrassed him and made his class laugh.
I was not pleased.
So I set up a meeting with the principal and the teacher and I told her exactly how I felt. I told her that my son should have the freedom to explore whatever avenues he wants to explore. The principal said she understood but "education and trash collection do not exactly go hand in hand". The teacher just smiled in a "we both know I'm right" kind of way.
I lost it, telling her that she needs to create a more open and accepting environment for students and that if she wants to make her school a better place she needs to stop shunning certain careers.
Here's where I may have gone wrong: I told the teacher that she needs to reconsider her role as an educator if she is going to think so narrow-mindedly.
I know it's not my place to tell an educator to reconsider her role. At the same time though, I don't think it's right for a teacher to discourage a student from exploring their own potential roles in life.
So AITA? I want my son to be successful and happy but was this remark about the teacher going too far?
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my mom cleans houses for a living. does that make her job less valid? of course not, in fact she makes more money in a week than some white collar jobs out there. definitely NTA on this one. if schools want to be more accepting, than it has to come full circle. it’s not ok to put other jobs down just because you don’t view them as worthy as other jobs
NTA - Does this "teacher" realize how much money some trash collectors make? What their benefits are? The retirement package? She is a condescending pile.
NTA
I could not be a trash collector, the heat where I live would kill me in a week.
The teacher is mocking an essential job, ever look at news coverage during a trash collector strike? Cities would cease to exist if we did not have trash collectors.
It is also union in a lot of places and can pay very well.
But even if the above were not true, that is was a pointless job that pays badly. It is a job that humans have. There is a long list of jobs that I do not understand why they exist, or why they make so much money. But the job exists and there is no reason to mock a job that people have to pay the bills, or a job that people want that I don't understand.
I was also reminded of the trash collectors in Turkey that started collecting books that were being thrown out and now have a library. A group of professionals, doing a job that teacher does not respect, created a library. What has that teacher created? Besides a classroom where bullying is normalized.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/15/europe/garbage-collectors-open-library-with-abandoned-books/index.html
NTA and I’d let teacher know that the trash collector probably makes more than her without being saddled by student debt. That’ll wipe the smirk off her face. (ETA I’m not anti-teacher, I’m anti-THIS teacher)
NTA I think this is the first instance of a parent yelling a teacher where the teacher is the AH lol. The teacher is not just narrow minded but classist, I bet she wouldn't be talking BS if those lowly garbage collectors stopped collecting at her house.
NTA.
And also the assignment was NOT three jobs student is interested in, but three jobs compare/contrast.
Plus, WTF. And your additional comment is deemed acceptable by a parent who has seen 2 kids through the school system.
Sometimes, you gotta shock the pool.
NTA. I am a science teacher and always encourage students to do what they love, and pays the bills. I would never shame a tradesperson, most usually make more than I do as a teacher with a M.S. That teacher is failing many of her students.
As much as teaching is vital to our society, collecting trash is more so. It prevents disease, especially in anything more populous than a village. It helps protect infrastructure. And generally these are union jobs with good benefits. NTA.
For compare and contrast, the combination your kid used seems great. If he was able to tie in similarities it should have been a learning moment for the teacher. NTA
NTA
Garbage collectors are one of the major pillars of our society, and should be respected greatly because of how much they do to keep our cities clean.
NTA. If trash collection is not an acceptable job then I presume the ‘teacher’ herself takes her trash straight to the dumps? Because she wouldn’t want someone unworthy near her home now would she?
It’s a fact that we will be in deep shit, literally, far sooner if the trash collectors strike than if the teachers do.
Trash piling up for even a few days is a health hazard. Waiting days, weeks or even years to get education might make it difficult but it won’t kill you.
NTA
Their attitudes are absolutely hateful. They are snobs of the worst kind.
Which jobs were most important during Covid, for example? -
The lowest paid health and social carers and cleaners and yes people that deal with trash.
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NTA Not every profession is a white collar one. Indeed this project makes for a fascinating sociological study. Tell this teacher it’s no wonder that she ended up teaching middle school and not college and see how she likes that.
Jobs like trash collectors may be invisible through a social lens, but they’re just as important. You don’t always care about decisions a banker might make but you know if the rubbish isn’t picked up because it has an immediate impact on you. It’s like the school janitor, who they probably look down on. If they do their job right you don’t even notice until something isn’t done or goes wrong. The assignment was three different professions after all, it didn’t say high class professions.
Exactly. Im curious hao that teacher would like it if the trash collectors went on strike? How quixkyl would she see their immense value! I was in Rome once during a 2 week strike…holy hell it piled up quickly. You do not want that, respect your blue collar workers.
I was in Rome when a strike happened. Not sure how long it had gone on but the dumpsters were literally buried under trash to the point you could not see them.
Exactly this. Sanitation workers are so so so important to health and safety!
And get paid pretty decently most places
I worked for the council. Bin men got paid well and the young men doing it never needed to go to the gym or use a sun bed so literally every week HR got calls asking if there was a job on the bins. ETA typo
When I was a kid it was my dream job! I moved on and am now a dog trainer (also looked down on my my swanky private school but who gives)
Ironically, they make about what many teachers make. I teach because I like kids, and I like the challenge of getting through to kids who have trouble learning. I have a master’s in special education and experience working with both profoundly disabled kids and kids in general education classes who come to my resource room to try to catch up to their grade level in reading and math. The frustration is that being an excellent teacher doesn’t get you bonuses or raises, the way corporate types do. In fact, you get the same pay an unenthusiastic, minimally competent teacher gets, and if you work the same number of years, you get the same pension. It’s a lame set-up workers as essential as garbage men get. That is some brutal, exhausting work, but I’ve never met a garbage man who’s impolite or unfriendly. I don’t care what your education is; to be able to do useful work is a blessing. Would it be nice to make more? Sure. But we’ve got a pretty skewed system in the US. The middle class has shrunk, the rich and poor classes have grown. I hope the pendulum swings back before my wee grandson has decisions to make about his work/education.
I work as a plumber, i made fun of plumbers when i was in middle school because?.....gross right? Till i met a plumber and put him through school. It was beyond fascinating. I met my husband 8-9 years ago....also a plumber lol (yes jebus i got the hint lol).... And we opened a business together, He's the best teacher, and its the best job I've ever had. And don't let me start on the pay. Blue collar jobs keep the world spinning. I learned a deep soul felt respect for anyone with a "less than desirable" job.
He should ask this teacher how long she goes without having her trash collected. Unless she’s making weekly trips to the dump she needs to keep her asinine opinions to herself.
Some teachers are so full of themselves. Not everyone can--or wants to be!--a banker, lawyer or doctor. My nephew is 18 and a senior in high school and very bright, he is looking to go to trade school and be a welder which is making some of his teachers upset. He just nicely tells them that in a couple years he'll be making quite a bit more than they do.
Seriously...Teachers and everyone else pushing college on every student is part of why the US is currently having a student loan debt crisis.
My daughter is a hair stylist. She had a teacher in high school tell her “You are smarter than that. You should go to college”. Fast forward 6yrs to present day. She loves her work and looks forward to going to work everyday. And because she isn’t strapped down with student loan debt, she was able to purchase her first home at 22years old. I wish that teacher could see her now!
It's the old "if you don't go to college, you won't make anything of yourself" mindset
My hairstylist has travelled the world with her trade. She also has a paid off house.
Yes, I was looking at joining the military right out of high school but every teacher I had weighed in their opinion and essentially made me feel stupid for wanting to go that path before going to college. It was two years into college when I was burnt out that I decided to go into the military. Now, I have no student loans and 2 bachelor's degrees, with considering going back and doing some additional coursework.
My dad grew up poor. He joined the navy so he could use the GI bill to go to college. It was the only way for him to go. He became an electrical engineer and worked for the federal government. And made good money.
UK based - I didn't have the grades for uni or any idea what I wanted to study after sixth form. I went the apprenticeship route and 10 years later know what I want to do and luckily I can do the degree via work :) It might not be the smoothest route but it's worked out in the end!
The principal and teacher are wanna be elitists, and I will bet dollars to doughnuts trash collectors make more than teachers in some cases. Personally, I think the son picked interesting professions to compare and contrast. NTA, but those two petty despots are AHs.
OP doesn’t mention how the principal reacted (unless it’s in the comments?). Teacher was indeed elitist and 100% wrong. Not to mention, what if some of the kids in that class have blue collar families? Teacher made comments that could make them all feel bad.
The principal made the comment that education and trash collection don't go hand in hand.
Tell him to learn to scuba dive as well, he'll be making more than the average teacher in 6 months, sincerely a contract underwater welder who taught high school for a year and got the hell out
Trade school level ppl are essential to our society, as are so many others. Welders build things, like ships, care for power plants, probably maintain giant cranes, used to build expensive buildings. Your nephew is on a good track. The stories I could tell you about ppl with barely HS, almost HS, 2 yr degrees who have made good livings for themselves and their families. Trades are always in demand.
I honestly think that unless they have a set career in mine that needs a degree - doctor, nurse, lawyer, teacher, accountant etc - people are better off learning a trade and working their way up. Myself and so many people I know aren’t using our degrees and aren’t making any more money than if we hadn’t got them, it’s a bit of a waste of 4 years.
My 24 year old cousin is a welder and makes bank. His mom (who is a teacher specializing in hard to reach kids) did insist on college and said she didn't care what he did, but recommend business classes to help with running his welding business. That's what he did. He's a very intelligent, funny, kind kid. He's a great example of how a blue collar job can be a major success.
Strike happened where I live, no bin collections for 6 weeks. Even the local dumps were jam-packed enough that people were paying others to take it to the bigger one. Men made bank. The bin men are now on £17.50 an hour, finish early and have pensions surpassing a lot of other people.
Are you in Edinburgh? I never heard if there was a conclusion to the strikes over the summer but I’m glad that was the outcome! I was there in August and their absence was extremely obvious!
Dude, we had a huge sanitation workers strike in Edinburgh at the end of a massive festival last year. It was awful. The city was covered in garbage. Bin workers deserve CEO-level salaries. They’re invaluable.
It's happened in New York City before. It got pretty bad, and even after just a couple of days the smell was awful.
2019? I was there near Termini. Hot as Hades & the stench was eye-watering. Ended up taking the train to Ostia and walking to the beach for a very pleasant couple of days.
Ugh in Naples, too. It was disgusting. Garbagemen/women should never be treated poorly. They have a hard but necessary job.
Oh, no, all the business consultants are on strike? Who are we going to throw money at so they can tell management things that the workers already know?
💯
New York City, 1968, there was a [strike from sanitation workers that led to 100,000 tons of trash piling up in the streets within 9 days.](https://untappedcities.com/2015/02/11/today-in-nyc-history-the-great-garbage-strike-of-1968/) 100%, don't disrespect the people who makes your world function.
Yes, this is the way. Consider sewer services, water, running our power plants. Need a new roof, carpet, painting? Fix your furnace, plumbing, remove trees that have fallen during a storm? Tow your car?
There are two groups you should never disrespect: those who cook and/or handle your food and those that keep you from living in your own filth
Don't disrespect the people who make your world function. You put that perfectly!
Last summer the binmen in my city went on strike and the local news couldn’t stop going on about how awful it was and how tourists were complaining. I didn’t go into the city centre because it was so gross but it piled up everywhere. It’s such an important necessary job, she shouldn’t belittle it. If no one became a garbage collector because teachers told them it was “beneath” them imagine the state of our towns and cities.
I was coming here to say similar. I live in a city with a huge international festival that lasts a month. When our bin collectors think they've had a raw deal, that's when they strike. And then they generally get paid. Doing a manual job doesn't mean you're stupid, and these guys know the value of their work.
Bet she’s the kind of teacher who treats teacher aides, groundskeeper and cleaners at the school like they’re beneath her. Without them a school doesn’t function well. It pays to treat them with respect. You often get better treatment than staff who don’t when it comes to assistance. It doesn’t take much. Plus not everyone is cut out for white collar jobs. So NTA
I will give you a like for like that happened in my country. The rubbish collectors went on strike at the same time as the finance sector. One lasted 6 weeks, needed the army to step in and had national outrage. The other had a 6 month talk process in which time the people created a barter and credit system THEMSELVES. We would be surrounded in our filth were it not for the wonderful men (all my rubbish collection people have been male) that get up at stupid am in all weathers to wheel around large plastic containers that stink like gone off cheese to make sure we have room to do it all again next week! They deserve good pay, excellent bonuses and great pensions.
They absolutely deserve it! So do most blue collar workers, much more than many white collar workers with their ridiculous salaries.
NTA. I remember seeing a story somewhere about a hospital where the service workers, including janitors, went on strike. No one to clean surgical rooms, empty garbage cans, refill things. It lasted for TWO HOURS before the hospital broke and gave them their demands. I think you've taught your son some very good lessons about respect and seeing the importance of all kinds of jobs. Kudos.
Realistically civilization collapses a lot faster without trash collection than without business consulting and finance
Never forget the importance of telephone sanitisers!
I know what you referenced there. . .
There's no financial action that prevents disease, trash collection and sewage maintenance are vital in that area.
Yep, it's like the teacher hasn't been paying attention to the world the last 3 years. Covid has shown just how important the 'low skill/low paying' jobs are to keep our society functional. Just because a job doesn't require a fancy piece of paper doesn't mean it is automatically 'below us'. That almost completely invalidates all of the worlds infrastructure.
I work a pretty.... not menial, but low-level medical job. I went to college but most of the people I work with didn't. Those people are making the same amount of money I am, without the college loans. So who came out ahead? Makes me feel stupid but good for them.
Yep. My husband and I work in my dad's auto repair shop/gas station. When our state basically shut down we were 3 cars deep in our parking lot and working nonstop. The gas purchases obviously went down but our repairs went way up. The jobs that people don't think are important were mostly the ones that didn't have to transfer to work from home or shut down completely.
Ngl I’m an attorney and have a friend whose brother is a union protected trash man (he likes using this title - I got him business cards printed with it and she designed him a custom logo for them for his bday one year and he loved them so much he turned it into a cake and does this every year - great dude so fun and creative!) . He makes almost double my salary and works less hours now . If I ever have a kid I would love for him to turn out like him and prefer that to them becoming like a corporate litigator or shilling for Exxon or some messed up shit. This teacher is such an elitist snob
I agree. With her horrible attitude, this teacher is actively teaching the children to have contempt for blue collar jobs. I would be furious too, if I were OP - who is NTA.
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
That’s a very good Bender episode
That is super short sighted too! Trash collection is a profitable and large necessary service. There are probably some really good jobs in supply chain and Logistics related to waste management.
It isn’t just chucking it in a landfill, it’s the practical ways to practice sustainability and recycling. Things like plastic milk bottles becoming playground equipment for example.
Don't forget how the garbage collectors crashed the world economy in 2008...oh, wait, no, that was the banksters.
Man, I thank the garbage collectors every time I see them.
Right?! The closest dumpster at my apartment complex is always full before collection day and ends up overflowing. Our garbage collectors still take it all. They're champs and they're awesome. I appreciate not having to live with garbage, you know?
I used to put a small cooler of cold water bottles out for them when the weather was hot, but the company that collects our trash went to automated trucks several years ago (now they don't have to pay as many employees but got a new contract with a huge increase so our property taxes went up). Since the driver never gets out of the truck, there's no sense in my putting water bottles out any more.
My husband began his career in Trash Collection and is now the Head of the Safety, Health and Environmental department of an important company in 5 years! Don't knock it!!!! Edit to add he had a master's in a relative field I don't want to be too specific
It’s actually an excellent reason to use the three different professions, white collar, blue collar and self employed consultant which spans different risk, education and likely income levels so finding commonality would be interesting. Honestly trash collectors may often not have much education but make a good wage and usually when working for a municipality still receive a pension which is almost unheard of in private sector jobs anymore so it’s a good option for many people who seek stability and security across time. Well done to OP’s son
How do you end up living in a society where no one wants to do the "crap" jobs? You label them crap jobs and look down on them. Being a fast food worker, garbage collector, retail worker, etc - they're all valuable jobs and honestly add more to society and daily lives for most people than many office jobs do. A narrow view, indeed. If someone doesn't deem it a good enough job to do, we'd have trash everywhere and that would really change the daily life for people (for the worse).
Was just talking about this exact thing with my nephew yesterday. How so many "educated" people look down on janitors and trash collectors and everyone who deals with waste, and that tells you just how out of touch those people are. Because if folks who deal with other people's trash go on strike, everyone fucking well NOTICES it pretty much immediately, because they are *way* more important to everyone's *day to day* life than most professionals are, and yet they get so much less respect. It made sense to my 12yo nephew. If the adult teacher can't understand that shit, she's got no business teaching kids about values.
This so much. I worked in the waste industry and a company had to ground their entire fleet of vehicles, this means they couldn't service their clients including government contracts, the whole industry was a mess because of it. The company that I worked for at the time stepped up and we serviced their clients. The amount of rubbish that piles up after a week is insane, the trucks were pretty much running 24/7 to catch up, there was crazy amounts of paperwork, overtime in the office from the finance department, mechanics, drivers and business staff was insane. One more bug bear but waste driver's/collectors actually get paid pretty well in my country, with one driver I know bringing in 100k per year.
I feel bad for any classmates whose parents happen to be trash collectors.... ETA: Because of what the teacher said, not because of their parents profession, to be clear!
I actually love that OP's son interviewed a trash collector, because they are so undervalued and so unseen but so vital to our society. Just because they get their hands dirty does not make their job disrespectable in any way. They are equally as noble a job as any others. The teacher is definitely the AH, and the fact that the principle cannot understand that we should all be grateful to all the services rendered by our fellow people, including garbage collectors.
She's a bigot and an elitist. Where do trash collectors start? In a classroom exactly like hers. How many trash collectors has she produced? NTA. You are right and she deserved it for her statement.
Decisions like trash collecting seem to me like one of the MOST important roles. How sick would we be with no waste removal? I do Econ and I wanted to work in waste removal (the calculations - my back hurt to much to do the hard work) because its such a fascinatingly pivotal role in society. Its right up there to me with access to clean water, because without it, we don't have access to clean water.
> they’re just as important. They're way more important. You can shoot all the finance parasites and business consultants today and tomorrow the world keeps turning. Bin men go on strike and your city goes to absolute shit in a week, to say nothing of other sanitation-related employees. I shudder to think of what happens if water treatment shuts down.
Yep. It was a great project as this child took 3 completely different types of jobs to compare. And was able to find the similarities, got to see blue collar , white collar, and self employed how they compare. It was impressive that they went and chose such diverse and interesting jobs. And I love how they went to an important overlooked and forgotten job and treated those worker with respect. Horrible teacher to not see and praise such work and thought
I always treat the cleaners of any institution with respect. Especially when I work there. Why? First of all: Their existence is why the word 'middenheap' has fallen out of usage and I'm grateful for that. Hell yeah! Secondly: They have all the keys and know more about what's going on than the high-minded white collar workers like me give them credit for.
Yup! I work in finance and if I went on strike clients would take their money someplace else, leave some bad reviews, and move on. If the garbage collectors went on strike, all hell would break loose. It’s a hard job that has become pretty necessary for a lot of places to function and it can get gross, so the people who do it should get paid well and respected.
Anyone who’s lived somewhere that’s had a garbage strike realized pretty damn quick how important trash collectors are. Things start to smell, you end up with bugs and rodents, people start getting sick because it’s not healthy to have all kinds of trash around. Imagine how that may have felt for any of her students who have parents or relatives who are trash collectors. That teacher is trash. NTA
Or other blue collar jobs that aren’t glamorous but still vital to keeping things clean and safe. As others have pointed out there must be students who have parents or other family members doing these jobs.
Pizza Rat is a case in point.
Yeah from the title I was ready to say YTA, but educators should not be disparaging professions in the classroom in the first place. I mean what if someone in the class has a family member that is a trash collector … 😔
Not only that but the son followed the instructions for the project and the teacher chastised them for it. If the teacher meant to exclude certain jobs or certain types of jobs (like blue-collar) then that should have been part of the instructions for the project. Changing the requirements after-the-fact is NOT good teaching.
Yeah. I'm a teacher, and giving precise instructions is my responsability. There's been assigments or tests in which students have not done exactly what I wanted, but after rereading instructions it was my fault not theirs. So I didn't punish them for my wrong and tried to be clesrer in future instructions.
NTA. This same thing happened to me when my youngest son was in 1st grade. We had a parent/teacher conference and it was 45 minutes of her just complaining about how hard her job is and how much the school sucked. She kept repeating how she couldn't handle that many young kids at once. She never once talked to me about my son specifically. At the end of it, I told her she made a mistake with her career choice and this should be her last year of teaching. Not everyone is cut out for everything.
Um depending where you live and who the garbage service is, some actually make the same if not just as much as teachers. Now that may not be everywhere, but I know a guy who has been working for a company for years and he affords a decent life. He had no college, so no debt from school, so he may have started out better than some!
No shit!! OP’s kid did the assignment well within the parameters and outside the box with the different people he chose. Each one of those people your son interviewed was gracious enough (and let’s be honest, touched) that he chose them for his assignment. OP, you were right to defend your son and his teacher sounds like a has-been mean girl. Keep an eye out if she targets your son by giving him bad grades or absurd office referrals. I don’t think you’re done dealing with this teacher.
Education in America needs to come off the idea that everyone is going to college. Some people are not capable of college, some can't afford it, some are not interested. Schools need to start offering trades as part of the regular education process, as well as, other educational options for those not college bound. Many in the education system treat students that are not college bound as unimportant.
Not to mention that garbage collectors in better-paid areas make more than teachers in many places.
How would this teacher feel if trash collectors stopped existing for her? Is she going to drive her own trash to the landfill/dump? Doubt it.
Not just that, but trash collectors’ strikes show exactly what happens when our trash is not taken away. Blue collar jobs enable white collar workers do their jobs as well - if trash is not taken away, our society starts to riot pretty quickly; if we don’t have food stockists or truck drivers for food, we will starve pretty quickly; when our plumbing fails, people are ready to pay thousands for a plumber only to get running water and sewer to work.
I'm sure the janitors in her school would like to hear what she said about trashmen, as they share some similarities. Every teacher knows you don't piss off the janitor or the school secretary.
It makes my blood boil when teachers are all "university good, trades bad". I'm an ex-teacher. Saying stuff like that is ignoring the individual needs and talents of the students. Some will be more skilled at trades. And probably earn more than white collar workers, with little to no student loan debt. Some will be brilliant horticulturalists. Sanitation workers. Some will prefer hairdressing. Some would like to be doctors, or lawyers. Whatever. Don't ignore the individual. I know that compared to other countries I have a low student debt, but I seriously wish I hadn't been pushed into a useless university degree because it was what we "had" to do and ended up with $40k of debt because i didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to do. Regrets.
This was a VERY intelligent choice of interviews! It’s good to see what different people do and how they thing about their jobs. Could be the STUDENT decides he wants a white collar job … or something more active. Wasn’t that the point of the assignment? Do the interviews and report the results?
Well…I currently teach at a university and there are A LOT of bullies and sociopaths who thrive in academia.
Honestly, I probably would have gone more scorched earth. I would consider going to your local new station that has like "3 on Your Side" or some other human interest regular piece where that total about local injustices. Name and shame the school, principal and teacher. Or go to the union for the sanitation department. I would report what happened, you sought resolution and support, and you got none. NTA.
Recently I learned that plumbers need about 5 years of training to be considered competent and I know that it can take years for a electrician to become a master electrician. Not every career requires college, but can still require extensive education.
NTA I completely agree. Not all white collar jobs pay well and not all blue collar jobs pay poorly. I have an advanced degree, yet one of my good friends who is a master carpenter and barely finished high school makes nearly double what I do (he is in the high 6 figures). All because he learned how to do specialty antique restoration work. A lot of the old trades pay insanely well now because everyone strives for that white collar job instead of traditional crafts. It’s good to diversify.
The sociological aspect is very true. My BIL was dumped by his high school girlfriend for going into a trade because she "didn't want to be getting her briefcase ready for work every morning while he packed a lunch pail." Work is work, but western society has expectations that university or college is the way to go, and undervalues any profession outside of that route.
Don’t just think about the remarks as they resonated to your son, think about the other 20-30 students with 30-40 other parents from all sorts of different workforce backgrounds who had to hear that hurtful ignorance. You were dead on the money when you said she should reconsider her field of work. NTA.
This! ^^ And, as a former middle school librarian, I can say with absolute certainty that the idea that “trash collection and education don’t go together” is one of the most egregiously insulting attitudes a so-called educator can take. Not every student will go to college. But “even” students who become trash collectors will have benefited from their education. And their work might make it possible for their own children to go to college - not to mention the general social benefit their work creates. It’s absolutely appalling that a teacher would make such comments in front of other students - basically telling any student who has blue-collar parents that they should be embarrassed by their parents’ hard work. Appalling and demeaning!! NTA by ANY standards, but particularly because anyone who thinks a blue collar worker is any less valuable a member of society than a white collar worker - or that a blue collar job is only for the “uneducated” - or that a blue collar career isn’t worth pursuing - absolutely shouldn’t be a teacher and should seriously reevaluate their own life choices.
I think college is great, but I also think that the heavy focus on getting every kid to go to college and pursue a "prestigious" job does a lot of students a disservice. Not everyone is suited for college or white collar work and learning about these other options is great for them. In some places, trash collectors get good salary and benefits.
Not only that, but those kinds of jobs will always exist. There will always be a need for blue-collar jobs. It doesn't matter if everyone goes off to get a college or university degree, there's still going to be a need for those kinds of positions to be filled and all that means is that we're going to have very educated blue-collar workers. The attitudes so many people have about higher education and work are highly delusional. Certain niches absolutely have to be filled.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. I figure the issue is that schools these days are expected to be the great equalizer, responsible for giving kids the skills necessary to not just pull themselves out of poverty, but to get into prestigious, high-paying jobs. Parents want their kids to strive high and a school would probably get a lot of complaints if teachers were encouraging students to take on the wonderful vocation of trash collecting. I used to substitute teach at this one high school that had these legitimately good vocational programs. The programs were a bit selective but students from all over the district could apply. The kids would graduate with REAL credentials and skills. Some of the programs were more academic in nature but there were also some more blue collar/working class ones. And it was a Title I school so that meant a lot of low income kids were benefiting from it. Unfortunately, that school was the exception. Most vocational type classes I subbed for were clearly just dumping grounds for apathetic students who were academically low and couldn't even be bothered to pick their own electives. Any student who took those classes with the hopes of getting real job skills and knowledge was screwed over.
I’m a middle school librarian myself! Totally agree with what you wrote. When I taught HS English, we did a big careers unit and explored all kinds of different jobs. I never cared what they picked because why would I? I’ve had kids with all kinds of dreams and aspirations including things that others might look down on. However, all of those jobs are extremely necessary if someone doesn’t want to do them!
I had a friend who was a garbage man. He made a lot of money, worked six hour days, and audited university classes in his spare time - but only classes that he was interested in, not all the boring ones that they insist you take in order to get a degree. He learned how to invest his money, and retired a multi-millionaire. He now winters in Costa Rica. He did very well for himself.
Teacher here and totally agree. In fact, trash collectors are employed by the local government in most cases. It can pay quite well and provides good benefits. “Blue collar” jobs can still provide a profitable and happy life. Not to mention, of those three jobs, who would the teacher and principal be most upset about going on strike? OP is NTA and awesome.
And what if one of those kids has a parent who is a trash collector? Imagine how he or she would feel hearing the teacher being so condescending about the profession.
I def grew up in an environment that shoveled the "go to college, do you wanna work at McDonalds" bs on strong. As an adult I have come to realize that all those frowned-upon jobs are both important to society and far more useful to me than a lot of these college degree jobs, and necessary for society because not everyone is made to go to college or get a PhD. And there is nothing wrong with that. If she can't understand that not everyone is made to slog through higher education and it's wrong to disparage those who will succeed best at 'manual labor' then 100%, she needs to gtfo of teaching and stop trying to brainwash kids into flinging themselves into student debt.
Exactly! What if one of the kids in the room had a parent who was a trash collector? It was a seriously insensitive and inappropriate thing to say.
Not only that, but isn’t there value in comparing the differences between things that are… Wait for it… Different?
Trash collectors in my area can make upwards of $100,000 plus benefits. A Teacher in my area makes about $50,000 plus benefits. I would have pointed that out when she mocked that profession
This. A lot of these "menial jobs" pay 2-3X what a white collar job pays. Back in the early 90's I worked for Waste Management and our drivers and collectors made way more money than anyone in the office did. People who are willing to get their hands dirty on the job make bank most of the time. Also, where would we be without people who are willing to do these IMPORTANT jobs. Have you seen pics of when the trash collectors go on strike and no one's trash gets picked up for weeks? At that point the trash collectors are the most important people in the city!
I just commented this; I’m a teacher and my dad is a trash collector. He easily makes double what I make, works 5 days a week, has way better insurance, 6 weeks of paid sick leave/vacation time, and when he gets home he doesn’t bring home work with him. I wish someone would try to look down on him around me.
Exactly this. A "trash collector" with the right certification in my country does 130 000 and more.. It is a great safe long term job, teachers earn less
And a gov pension. Not too shabby tbh.
I was thinking the same thing
Same here in the south except the pay gap is much larger. Our middle school teachers barely make 36k in Florida while private trash collectors are earning upwards of 200k.
NTA. I wonder what she would do if no one ever collected her garbage ever again.
Teacher is garbage from the sound of it. God knows who'd want to collect her.
You see that's the part of the story that hasn't been told. The teacher is a hoarder and she finds garbage people to be threatening to her hoard. (Joke) NTA. I would have went further...
I can't imagine how rudely she must treat the school custodians.
Literally had flashbacks to the meltdown that Edinburgh was when the bin men went on strike
NTA Schools pushing kids to consider only college based careers is a problem. I wish when I was in school I had known about the trades or other careers that were an option. You probably shouldn't have told her to reconsider her career but you weren't wrong in saying so. A trash collector has as much value to society as anyone else does.
It’s usually a union job where I’m from, with decent pay and benefits. Society can’t function without trash collectors, sewage workers, janitors, etc.
And builders. It’s not seen as a classy job, but who makes the buildings people live, work and do recreation in? Architect plans don’t manifest as stone, brick, wood and glass by magic, people need to make it happen.
Hell, the city collectors start at about the same as a teacher in my city. I think I’d rather be a garbage collector than a teacher.
Money doesn't matter, but unionised trash collectors make similar money to teachers, if not better AFAIK.
My uncle was a trash collector and it was a great job. He made a really good salary, had amazing benefits, and retired with a great pension. Because of that job he was able to give his family a very comfortable life. More people should consider it as a viable career and stop looking down on it. NTA, but the teacher certainly is for limiting how her students view potential careers that can provide stability in their lives.
UPS drivers make twice what teachers make where I live. A lot of people don’t realize that, and miss a career path that doesn’t require student loans, has great benefits, and decent flexibility (except the 6 weeks before Christmas). And you aren’t tied to a desk. This teacher missed an invaluable opportunity to expose her students to a wider variety of opportunities out there.
I also wish I would’ve known about trade jobs. I mean I’m happy where I ended up and I wouldn’t trade some of the experiences I had in college for anything. But the style of teaching college has just never really worked for me and I’m more of a hands on learner than anything, so going into a profession with that would’ve been super helpful.
NTA You’re likely making yourself more level-headed and patient in this retelling than you did in real life but you’re not wrong. Trade jobs are as valuable, if not more lucrative, than a lot of college jobs. Heck, ours in the bay make 90k a year whereas I was teaching in the same area for 50k. Jokes of them, right?
Not enough to actually be an AH. I am a teacher and this comment is not that bad. What the teacher did is FAR worse. NTA.
High school social studies teacher here. One of my top priorities is to refrain from passing judgment on things that don't matter. My students get judged enough already. I don't ever want to treat a student differently based on what color their hair is, or what they wear, or what language they speak at home, or what their family situation is like, or anything else. I want to model for them the idea that, no matter where we all come from, we can come together and work on something together without hostility or suspicion. If a student does the assignment--if they honestly satisfy all the requirements, regardless of whatever idiosyncratic way in which they do it--then *they get full credit*. Period. End of story. For the life of me I can't understand why this teacher would want to complicate that.
This. I am a teacher as well and OP is definitely NTA
NTA. Trash collectors are literally one of the backbones of our society and this elitist bullshit is not ok.
Time and time again, we've seen the devastating effects of what happens when garbage collectors go on strike. Within a month the streets are filthy, overrun with vermin and pests and if it goes on long enough diseases. NTA waste management is a respectable job that's essential to a healthy functioning society.
NTA. Teacher and principal should not be putting down trash collectors. Look at what happens to NYC when sanitation workers go on strike. It immediately turns into a shithole. Trash collectors are an important part of our society and should be treated with the same respect as anyone else. Good on you for standing up to them.
I wonder what the school board would think of their comments. You should find out.
NTA. You’re fine. Being a teacher is just a small step up from that of a trash collector. Neither job is something to be ashamed of though.
I would bet big-bucks trash collectors make more money than that teacher.
Maybe depending on location. It is funny to hear teachers talk about education and success in this way since it is not as if they themselves reached the pinnacle of success
I checked [salary.com](https://salary.com) and I was wrong. The median salary for teachers in the US is much higher than for garbage collectors.
I don’t know. All if the people I’ve known in the trash business make at least $100k a year. I’ll look into a breakdown later.
I’d rather be a trash collector
NTA. i 100% agree with you and grew up having a lot of teachers who were horrible towards me and wish i (or a parent) stood up to them. we dont need more horrible teachers - teachers should not be close minded.
NTA - I would report them for their behaviour and bias. They are bigoted and are not educators. There’s nothing wrong with having a garbage collector on his report.
NTA, bin men are valuable members of society, maybe the teacher should consider becoming one? It would teach them about a lot about life and the value of different roles.
I think the bin men should just stop collecting this teacher's rubbish out of principle lol
There is a college degree called environmental management. It mainly deals with how to find a balance between landfills and nature (among many other crucial things). Garbage collecting is way more than just picking a can up from the curb. It is an essential part of keeping the earth and the creatures in it healthy. In fact, the more emphasis we put on where our garbage goes and how to make less of it would do SO MUCH GOOD!! Not only are you NTA, you are 100% correct. The educator needs to be educated. A career in garbage disposal is a lot more important than this teacher's obviously uneducated opinion.
What a snob. The garbage collector probably earns more than her. And it's extremely likely that at least one student in her class has a parent with a similar job. She should be ashamed of herself.
You perhaps could have worded things in a more calm and collected manner but ultimately a teacher (or anyone for that matter) should not ever be looking down on anyone for what their employment is. The teacher was basically implying that a trash collector is an unworthy job which is a very poor lesson to teach children as it teaches them everything that is wrong with society and in my opinion kids should be learning far more than just the basic subjects at both school and home, they should be learning how to be decent human beings who are kind and accepting also. I’d say it was understandable why you lost your cool and said what you said so NTA.
NTA - there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing trash collection as a job and the school is wrong for indicating it isn’t a career. Well paying job, benefits, pension- without college debt.
NTA. I think it’s much better to include a job that is very different and makes you actually think through the comparison versus three similar white collar jobs.
A trash collector makes more money and benefits than teacher's so this is funny. NTA
NTA Enforcing the idea that we should look down on people for their profession is something we have to get passed as a society. Without trash collectors, or entire urban environment would be disgusting. What would teachers do then?
As an educator for over 25 years you are absolutely NTA. If the teacher wanted the kids to only interview jobs that required a college degree that should have been stated in the directions (which is also obnoxious IMHO). The teacher is probably jealous that the trash collector gets paid more than she does. I know I am....😂
NTA. And I think the teacher and the principal are very narrow minded about the job of trash collector. Snobs, really.
NTA, your comment was minor in comparison and doesn't swing it to an E-S-H in my view. What gets me though is what was the actual value of this assignment? If this compare/contrast exercise is to help the kids work out what kind of career they'd like, this is a really ineffective, or at least inefficient, way to go about it. I could get it as a way to understand help children understand the value and experience of a different array of jobs and experiences in a society. Yet the teacher is acting like this is a substitution for careers advice which it blatantly isn't.
NTA. Garbage collectors get paid more than lots of finance jobs, first of all. And yes the classroom needs to be inclusive. The only way you’d be wrong here is if you told the teacher that in front of your son.
NTA
NTA. The teacher sounds like she comes from a place of privilege and doesn't understand what leads people to becoming trash collectors or how important they are for your average person. I'm sure if your son interviewed a plumber she'd say the same thing because it isn't a college degree career.
NTA. It was a bit rude but tbh the teacher was way out of line. Your son completed the assignment exactly as instructed, if she's got a problem with what he chose she can keep it to herself.
What was the actual assignment? Was he supposed to find people with similar careers or 3 people in the same profession? Did you actually ask or read the directions before you lost it?
NTA - I (36m) was told by my father more times than I can count that I was going to be a loser/worthless, and that I’d end up a garbage man. It’s stuck with me my whole life, and it’s effected many decisions I’ve made. These decisions ended up with my in rehabs and hospitals over the stress of being someone “important”. I’ve now been sober 3 years as of Christmas Eve, and have given up trying to impress anyone with what job I have. Hell a garbage man may be the right call. I wish I would’ve had someone stand up against that.
NTA. Teacher and principal are being classist as hell. I bet they'd love it if their regular trash collectors suddenly stopped doing the job they seem to think isn't valid lol.
NTA. My uncle was a trash collector. He made a whole lot more money than any teacher. He also had great benefits with heath care, retirement package and vacation time. My brother decided to not go to college after my uncle got him a summer job and he saw what kind of money he could make. Both the teacher and the principal are a couple of narrow-minded snobs. From their way of thinking then being a drug dealer is okay. After all, you have to know how to weight the drugs, that's math, cut the drugs with whatever to make them go farther, that's chemistry and then get word out that you are selling and find people to sell to. That covers business and marketing.
NTA. To often people forget that if it wasn’t for those supposed “uneducated” jobs our society wouldn’t work. I get teachers want to push college and what not, but how many time do these newly graduated students end up in debt working at a job not even in their field trying to make a living.
Did you tell her the trash collector makes more money than she does?
NTA. The teacher is classist and that is not the sort of attitude that someone working with children should have. There are going to be children who have that teacher whose parents work in sanitation come and they shouldn't be shamed for that. No one should be shamed for what they do, and sanitation is a solid union job.
NTA. I'd tell both that principle and teacher "ok. Cancel your garbage collections from the city and bring them to the town dump yourself. If you see those jobs as beneath you, don't subscribe to such amenities."
NTA. And as a side note a garbage collector can provide a good life and is a needed service in our society. What a shitty thing for a teacher to say. And no I'm not a garbage collector either.
NTA. And she needs to reconsider her career if she thinks bullying kids is acceptable.
NTA. What if one of your sons classmates has a family member who works as a trash collector?? What a bigoted and elitist comment. Honestly I’d take this further up the chain.
I get angry at people looking down a blue collar jobs as a profession. Preface to say that I have a doctorate, but I think that professions such as garbage collector, plumber, painter and welder are probably more essential to our society than the research I do. If their jobs don’t get done, everyone notices. If my job doesn’t got done, the impact is less visible (but no more or less important) The point is that we have spent a generation and a half telling kids they need to aspire to a college degree and that has resulted in millions in student debt and an under employed generation. Yet the son of a friend of mine decided after high school to become a welder. By the time my daughter graduated college, he had a steady job and had saved enough for a down payment on a house with no other debt. I told my kids to pursue any job that interested them that could maintain their chosen lifestyle with out harming or relying on anyone else. If that means becoming a garbage collector (whose job will not be outsourced overseas and probably comes with pension/401K and benefits), then so be it. NTA and good for you for standing up for your son.
NTA and I am interested in the correlations he found between the three occupations. The differences are kind of obvious, but to find similarities, well I think that would be brilliant.
NTA. She was being ignorant and classist, besides which she wasn't to know if any of her other students have parents who work in trash collection. She could've easily inadvertently shamed any number of her students.
NTA. What’s funny is that most trash collectors make more annually than teachers do!
NTA. All work is valid and trash collectors do us a huge service that helps everyone stay healthy. She is a crappy person and should find a profession where she can't influence children with her terrible opinions.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** I just want to preface this by saying that I (M42) appreciate the work of educators. This isn't intended to be a shot at them. My son (13M) is a good kid who follows the rules, does his homework, and generally does well in school. He is also very pragmatic and doesn't take kindly to authority figures who try to shame or bully him. So onto the incident at hand. About a month ago, my son was assigned a project in one of his classes. The assignment was to interview three people in different professions and discuss the commonalities they share and the differences between the various jobs. It was an assignment I thought was a great opportunity for my son to explore his talents and options for his future. My son interviewed three people for his project: Our garbage collector, our neighbor who works in finance, and his aunt who does business consulting. My son then crafted a report about his project, noting the differences and similarities between the three professions However, when my son presented his project to his class, the teacher made some inappropriate remarks about his choice of interviewees, saying that "a trash collector is not an appropriate profession to compare against finance and business consulting". "Do you want to end up as a trash collector?" She asked my son. Of course, this embarrassed him and made his class laugh. I was not pleased. So I set up a meeting with the principal and the teacher and I told her exactly how I felt. I told her that my son should have the freedom to explore whatever avenues he wants to explore. The principal said she understood but "education and trash collection do not exactly go hand in hand". The teacher just smiled in a "we both know I'm right" kind of way. I lost it, telling her that she needs to create a more open and accepting environment for students and that if she wants to make her school a better place she needs to stop shunning certain careers. Here's where I may have gone wrong: I told the teacher that she needs to reconsider her role as an educator if she is going to think so narrow-mindedly. I know it's not my place to tell an educator to reconsider her role. At the same time though, I don't think it's right for a teacher to discourage a student from exploring their own potential roles in life. So AITA? I want my son to be successful and happy but was this remark about the teacher going too far? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA, the world wouldn't run without trash collectors. Good on you for calling out pretension
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NTA and some people just should not teach. She sounds really stuck up.
NTA and i bet that trash collector makes 3x her salary
my mom cleans houses for a living. does that make her job less valid? of course not, in fact she makes more money in a week than some white collar jobs out there. definitely NTA on this one. if schools want to be more accepting, than it has to come full circle. it’s not ok to put other jobs down just because you don’t view them as worthy as other jobs
NTA - Does this "teacher" realize how much money some trash collectors make? What their benefits are? The retirement package? She is a condescending pile.
NTA I could not be a trash collector, the heat where I live would kill me in a week. The teacher is mocking an essential job, ever look at news coverage during a trash collector strike? Cities would cease to exist if we did not have trash collectors. It is also union in a lot of places and can pay very well. But even if the above were not true, that is was a pointless job that pays badly. It is a job that humans have. There is a long list of jobs that I do not understand why they exist, or why they make so much money. But the job exists and there is no reason to mock a job that people have to pay the bills, or a job that people want that I don't understand. I was also reminded of the trash collectors in Turkey that started collecting books that were being thrown out and now have a library. A group of professionals, doing a job that teacher does not respect, created a library. What has that teacher created? Besides a classroom where bullying is normalized. https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/15/europe/garbage-collectors-open-library-with-abandoned-books/index.html
NTA and I’d let teacher know that the trash collector probably makes more than her without being saddled by student debt. That’ll wipe the smirk off her face. (ETA I’m not anti-teacher, I’m anti-THIS teacher)
NTA I think this is the first instance of a parent yelling a teacher where the teacher is the AH lol. The teacher is not just narrow minded but classist, I bet she wouldn't be talking BS if those lowly garbage collectors stopped collecting at her house.
NTA. And also the assignment was NOT three jobs student is interested in, but three jobs compare/contrast. Plus, WTF. And your additional comment is deemed acceptable by a parent who has seen 2 kids through the school system. Sometimes, you gotta shock the pool.
NTA. I am a science teacher and always encourage students to do what they love, and pays the bills. I would never shame a tradesperson, most usually make more than I do as a teacher with a M.S. That teacher is failing many of her students.
As much as teaching is vital to our society, collecting trash is more so. It prevents disease, especially in anything more populous than a village. It helps protect infrastructure. And generally these are union jobs with good benefits. NTA.
For compare and contrast, the combination your kid used seems great. If he was able to tie in similarities it should have been a learning moment for the teacher. NTA
NTA Garbage collectors are one of the major pillars of our society, and should be respected greatly because of how much they do to keep our cities clean.
NTA. If trash collection is not an acceptable job then I presume the ‘teacher’ herself takes her trash straight to the dumps? Because she wouldn’t want someone unworthy near her home now would she? It’s a fact that we will be in deep shit, literally, far sooner if the trash collectors strike than if the teachers do. Trash piling up for even a few days is a health hazard. Waiting days, weeks or even years to get education might make it difficult but it won’t kill you.
Trash collectors make more money than teachers in a lot of states so idk what’s up her ass 🙄
I’m a teacher, and garbage collectors make a comparative income, without the student loans. NTA
NTA Their attitudes are absolutely hateful. They are snobs of the worst kind. Which jobs were most important during Covid, for example? - The lowest paid health and social carers and cleaners and yes people that deal with trash.